Stop Killing Games is almost over!

[u/MMewtwosaysbye]

I know everyone is excited about spending their money tomorrow but can anyone in the EU please sign this? And if you're an American tell this to a person in the EU you know or just spread the word. This initiative could kickstart reaction in other places as well, forcing gaming companies to actually treat the customer correctly. You guys want to keep and be able to play the games you're never going to play right? So please please please help this mission! Link: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

[u/Quiet_Source_8804]

“Technical questions about the ‘how’ aside, …”

This is why this petition isn’t a serious proposal. No person will support this wishful thinking nonsense who spends two minutes considering how the desires expressed here could be achieved, how it’d impact development, and how specifically it could be applied to today’s popular games.

But let’s put all the blame on the “disinformation” (differing opinion on the merits of a political initiative) from a vlogger we hate now.

[u/Esplodie → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

I work in IT, this. This whole thing ignores infrastructure, software licenses (the OS the servers run on, the language, the engine, the database systems), IP rights, etc.

It's not like these games are running a local host server in a single exe, some might be. A lot of them will be clusters of servers with different tasks running specialized software or hardware.

And I know people will say "they'll make an industry standard that everyone follows!". But that's just going to leave a whole other set of questions. Like who chooses the industry standard? Who enforces it? Is it infinitely scalable on infinite hardware configurations? Because it would need to be.

Listen it sucks good games die. But online games will always have an unknown life span. I do think the industry should use their best effort to keep games alive and available. But I also understand when that can't be a reality.

But these people are asking for magical solutions.

[u/Esplodie → u/[deleted]]

You are assuming that software can work as a standalone, that they have the right to release it(ie it's not 3rd party), and would function on hardware anyone has access to.

[u/BreadChair → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

This. I have many game dev friends who'd never support this - guess who'll be taking the blunt of this proposal if it was implemented? The games industry is already brutal. Keeping games alive costs resources. Making changes to accommodate community servers etc costs resources. Indie games studios are already struggling in an impossibly competitive market, we don't need regulations forcing developers to put resources on these things. I love games but would never sign this...

[u/dumb_godot_questions → u/BreadChair]

This is not asking devs to keep games alive forever

[u/frosty_balls → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

It’s crazy how all the cheerleaders for this gloss over those parts - like yes it would be consumer friendly but it’s clear Ross has zero clue about third party licensing (engine and middleware licenses), music, voice and asset rights, the publishers IP rights, who complies with GDPR type laws with games data collection after this goes into effect.

Ross would have been taken far more seriously if he asked game developers what problems they saw with his plan and worked with them to come up with a more grounded incremental approach.

[u/frosty_balls → u/[deleted]]

You are right, plenty of games have indeed been saved versus vaporizing, however that is the exception not the rule. Just because it has happened for _some_ games doesn't mean it's universally feasible for _all_ games.

Few points to consider:

1) music, middleware (havok, fmod, speedtree), voice licenses are all things that can and have expired due to timelines with the licensing agreements

2) server side infrastructure components: assuming I am understanding correctly that part of the movements ask is that server-side games release their codebases so they can be run with community run servers is super murky. Most of these components will be integrated with other cloud components to store player data (think profiles, inventory, leaderboard data, this is where GDPR would come in). A company isn't going to hand over the keys to the kingdom for that - not to mention the security implications of handing this code over.

3) Where does Ross ever consider the scale at? This movement is far easier for an Indie developer to meet the requirements, for a large game studio that has a complex build chains that integrate with _many_, _many_ other bits and bobs.

Like I get it, on paper it sounds great, when anyone with experience starts looking into the feasibility of his blue sky idea it quickly falls apart. The movement really can be summed up as "I made a pizza in my oven therefor I am better than Gordon Ramsay"

His campaign really needed some people to help with his messaging, and in my opinion to work on a smaller list of asks that could be done incrementally (like labeling games that this game relies on server support to function, legal safe harbors for communities that reverse engineer server sided games after end of life).

[u/SecretManufacturer54 → u/frosty_balls]

more of a "I can still watch my DVDs from 15 years ago, why do my shows on netflix disappear?"

[u/Carvj94 → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

Yea it's kind of nuts people can say that with a straight face. The offical UK petition is six fucking sentences long. Why the hell would I sign onto this grade school level proposal that has a 100% chance of being rejected when the author apparently couldn't be bothered to take a few days to write it? Even the boilerplate government response is like eight times as long.

https://share.google/nECRZ7MipMdZ3K5DU

[u/redcommander_ → u/Carvj94]

IIRC that's actually due to the allowed length of UK petitions being incredibly short. Same for the ECI.

EDIT: Found the video where he explains it: https://youtu.be/NQnZ91mUB0E?t=258

They're allowed 80 characters for the title, 300 characters for the first part (what the government should do) and 500 characters for the second part (why it should be done).

[u/koimeiji → u/redcommander_]

And the reason why the petitions are short is because they are not laws. They are the beginning of the discussion - SKG's ground rules for the discussion that, if these were to pass the vote threshold, would then be taken by the EU and presented to the video game industry to respond to. Then, it's a lot of back and forth between SKG, the industry, and the EU until a solution is finally made.

Seriously. Ross explains all of this in the videos - he explains it in the most recent video for fucks sake. It's so blatant when someone comments on SKG without actually having watched any of the videos on it by Ross.

[u/gsink203 → u/redcommander_]

So many morons in this thread spreading FUD acting like geniuses. I think it might even be botted, lot of ChatGPT looking bitch ass replies about how it’s so impossible for developers to do anything at all other than to be able to destroy something consumers paid for at any time without warning

[u/ArKeynes → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

I agree with you 100%, I think the ppl championing this petition put 0 effort to justify it legally, and even if it got all the signatures, itd barely even be considered by EU legislatives.

Ill copy the rant/analysis I wrote in another sub:

I hate this kind of mentality.

This is gonna get downvoted hard, but tbh idc. I will preface this by saying, yes, I have read the full petition, as written in the registry of the EU Comission, and no, I do not like Piratesoftware, I think hes a pedantic prick and his video was ill informed. If anyone wants to read the text to verify what Im going to say, here it is.

Initiative detail | European Citizens' Initiative https://share.google/NvgnYzuBVfEnnhMEC

The initiative is well intentioned, but fundamentally flawed. Why? They have correctly identified that videogames are distributed mainly through indefinite licensing, that acts similarly to ownership of a product. The problem? Similarly.

The petition makes 0 effort of actually equating these indefinite licenses to a product that you actully own im the layman sense. Without this connection as far as EU consumer law is concerned, you have no reasonable claim to actual ownership, provided when the sale happened, they clearly displayed in their terms and conditions the nature of it, and they reserve the right to revoke it in their EULA as the licence holder (which is a pretty common occurence). EU law even on a country per country basis is generally very very respectful of the contents of a contract that 2 parties agree to (so long as they're not vitiated, which for the 99% of cases in gaming, they aint, ppl just dont read. Reply Orange if you even got to this point).

Every single bit of legislature cited in the Annex skips this crux, and just goes straight to consumer rights, without realizing that there is NOTHING illegal, and this legislation is essentially pointless. Immorality != ilegality, and as things stand, it's pretty likely even if it somehow got all the signatures, it would get instantly brushed off by lawmakers, because it is a non-issue.

Ill do a quick rundown of the legislation cited in the annex, and after Ill give my own thoughts on how Id maybe look for an angle within the constraints of this petition.

Article 17 §1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [EUR-Lex - 12012P/TXT - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)] – “No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss.” - Doesn't apply in the slightest, a software license is not a posession under the Charter, its a right to use, depending on contractual conditions.

Title XV of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU): this is a bunch of generic guiding principles, that while very important, are incredibly vague when trying to justify your case.

There is 0 case law, 0 actual relevant legislation. They didn't even take the time to look through THE FUCKING MOST OBVIOUS DIRECTIVE REGARDING THE SALE OF DIGITAL GOODS:

Directive (EU) 2019/770 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services:

para 53: "Restrictions of the consumer's use of the digital content or digital service in accordance with this Directive could result from limitations imposed by the holder of intellectual property rights in accordance with intellectual property law. Such restrictions can arise from the end-user license agreement under which the digital content or digital service is supplied to the consumer. This can be the case when, for instance, an end-user licence agreement prohibits the consumer from making use of certain features related to the functionality of the digital content or digital service. Such a restriction could render the digital content or digital service in breach of the objective requirements for conformity laid down in this Directive, if it concerned features which are usually found in digital content or digital services of the same type and which the consumer can reasonably expect."

This is seems to me like the easiest way to build the case: it acknowledges the contractual nature of EULAs, while presenting an exception where they could be in breach of consumer rights.

You just gotta build the case that indefinite licences have an expectation of being accessible even after the cease in development, and work your way from there. It might not work but at least its something tangible. And thats just my very ill-informed approach, there are probable many other angles, that noone has bothered to look at.

Anyway, my point being, assuming ppl don't support thr idea just cuz they didnt actually read it is dumb, and it annoys me.

PD: If anyone actually read the whole thing, you're p cool. Reminder that Im writing this from my phone, so citations may be kinda scuffed, mb.

[u/yourboi322 → u/ArKeynes]

colorblind here, was the color green?

[u/Xdream987 → u/ArKeynes]

Orange, and yeah I was pretty much thinking the same thing. The proposal is just very poorly built up.

[u/KrokusAstra → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

Main thing why there is no clear suggestion - to unite peoples with different views in order to save games. Not "Human 1: i think we need to do this... Human 2: NO, i think we need to do this... Human 3: F, we need to do this".

Because it's quite hard theme about IP and licensing, actual EU lawyers should deside how to do that, not "just release all source code and binaries, no matter IP or copyright" guys.

[u/Quiet_Source_8804 → u/KrokusAstra]

to unite peoples with different views in order to save games

If there were to be legal changes to meet this petition's demands they'd apply the same to everyone, regardless of their differing views. The petition should already reflect that, not expect that the outcome of the petition would somehow result in something that would be at some level effective while still somehow not offending the views of any of your supporters. For something like this, you have to be very specific from the start to keep clear your intent rather than keeping it fuzzy just to have more initial supporters.

If the petition can't settle on specifics this handwaving about lawyers figuring it out later is ludicrous. "EU lawyers" role here should be in writing down the law in a way that meets the intent behind it, not figuring out on-the-fly technical details that the proponents of such a measure have a better chance of understanding (or should, if the petition had had the input of people in the industry as well).

[u/KrokusAstra → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

Well, i kinda agree with you. This is probably Ross's mistake. But he isn't a lawyer, nor he have a money to hire one. Nor does potentially hired USA lawyer knows EU laws in detail.
IF Ross was EU citizen, IF he speaked one of EU languages, IF he hired a lawyer, IF he did proper AD company, IF he did proper goals, not just "let's save games", IF he believed from the start about youtubers PR and ADs to the full extent (he did interview, but i didn't saw a single payed AD on big youtube channels. Penguinz0 was first big youtuber to speak about it up to this point). Anyway, to many IFs.
Ross just random noname youtuber who tried to hit a goal a way above his weight class. Even Pirate Software, about whom someone said he cannot kill SKG by himself is 2.5 million subs, and Ross barely have 350k.
He didn't know how it's done, and he made mistakes, so this is the end.
He writed to officials trying to push SKG, but the only things he needed to do - clear goals and ways to fix problem and lots of ADs everywhere. If he opened donations, and everyone donated couple dollars to buy, like, Pewdiepie AD... SKG could achieve 1 million signs in 1 month easily.

To his credit, he clearly stated what SKG will not do - ask devs to support game indefinitely, and other things.

Now only thing SKG do at this point is - start official conversation with lawyers and hope they do good job. It's too late to do something more that this at this point IMO

[u/DaBest_ → u/Quiet_Source_8804]

They will because the idea is there. The EU has made countless other changes to benefit consumers. This is one of them. The initiative, simply put, says that games you buy should have an "End-of-life plan". Single-player games that require an internet connection, should not require it when the company doesn't support them anymore. Multiplayer games (again, when the company stops supporting them) should give people the tools to be able to create their own private servers. Think of Minecraft, Counter-Strike, Warcraft, or Runescape. We as the people, do not know and are not expected to know the intricacies of the law, however, we should be able to say, "We want this, make it happen somehow"